Festivals, Visits, etc.

One thing we have up here is fall festivals and fairs. I have been to the Franklin County Fair and watched an ox pull ( they are huge, some over 6 ft high at the shoulder), to the Conway Festival of the Hills ( more mud than hills on that day), to the Ashfield Autumn Festival ( great weather) where I heard some great Celtic music, and the lower key Williamsburg Craft Fair, where I got some apple chutney to go with I don't know what, and to the Turner's Falls Pumpkin Festival where there were enough unwholesome foods being consumed to rival a major refinerey in terms of oil consumption and health effects.

I have finished getting the old rotted north sill out of my barn and now have to figure out how to replace it on the rough fieldstone foundation. Level it with mortar, pour in lots of concrete, ignore the problem and just lay some large boards down, are among the choices. Since we just got 7" of snow, fast and no water looks best right now. I've gotten most of the holes and damage to ramps from Irene fixed but I do need to lay down some paving stones. It looks like the house will have to wait for late spring for external and structural repairs except some rafter reinforcements.

I plan to visit Ridge on November 17 to, among other things, help a bit with the Physics Club's NJ Olympics team. DO NOT bring in any brownies, I am still 16 lbs over weight.

I have been writing recs like crazy and my facility for creative writing is becoming alarming. If only you guys were half as good as I say you were.

With some of you applying to a dozen and a half schools copying is worse than ever, in time, cost, and worst of all for me, keeping things straight.

I am rereading Einstein's 1916 paper on general relativity, but I need to prove some of the matrix algebra to myself rather than just accept what he's written. It's not that I think he might be wrong ( although there are some typos in this translation), its just that I don't know what it really means in terms of its effect on transforms from arbitrary reference frames to "natural coordinates" until I work out the steps.